When Your Company Is on Fire and Everyone's Looking at You

That's how I learned about 8D problem solving. Not in some corporate training session with PowerPoint slides, but because Ford Motor Company figured this out in the 1980s when their cars were falling apart and customers were fleeing to Honda.

Here's what Ford discovered: most companies treat problems like they're playing whack-a-mole. Something breaks, you fix it. Another thing breaks, you fix that too. Rinse, repeat, go insane.

But Ford asked a different question: What if we could solve problems so they never come back?

D1: Round Up the Usual Suspects (But Make Them the Right Suspects)

First mistake most people make? They grab whoever's available.

Don't do this. If your website crashes, you don't need the intern from accounting. You need the person who built the thing, the person who maintains it, and the person who gets screamed at when it's down.

I once watched a company spend six weeks "solving" a customer service problem using only managers who hadn't talked to a customer in three years. Guess how that went.

The rule: get people who actually touch the problem. Engineers who get the angry calls. Salespeople who hear the complaints. Customer service reps who live in the trenches.

Mix different departments. Engineers think differently than marketers. Marketers think differently than operations folks. That's not a bug, it's a feature.

D2: Say What You Actually Mean

"We have a customer satisfaction issue."

No, you don't. You have something specific that's pissing people off, and until you can describe exactly what that is, you're just wandering around in the dark.

I learned this the hard way. Spent two months trying to improve "customer satisfaction" before realizing our actual problem was that installation took four hours when we promised two. Everything else was fine. Installation sucked.

Better: "How do we reduce installation time from four hours to under two hours for 95% of customers by March 1st?"

See the difference? One makes you shrug. The other makes you want to time yourself with a stopwatch.

Ask the annoying journalist questions: What exactly happened? Where? When? Who was affected? How many people? Why does it matter?

Keep asking until someone says, "Okay, okay, I get it."

D3: Stop the Bleeding

Sometimes the building's on fire and you need to put it out before you figure out who left the coffee pot on.

This isn't about perfect solutions. It's about making sure things don't get worse while you're fixing the real problem.

When our installation problem was killing us, our temporary fix was simple: we started calling customers the day before to confirm the four-hour window instead of promising two. Not elegant. Not permanent. But it stopped the surprised, angry calls.

Other examples: halt shipments from the bad batch, redirect traffic to a backup server, double-check everything manually until you fix the automatic system.

Temporary fixes buy you time to think. Use that time wisely.

D4: Keep Asking "Why" Until You Want to Punch Yourself

This is where most people give up. They find the obvious cause and call it a day.

Our installations were taking too long. Why? Because our installers were slow. Okay, problem solved, right? Train the installers better.

Wrong.

Why were installers slow? Because they had to make three trips to their truck for parts. Why three trips? Because they couldn't carry everything at once. Why not? Because we didn't give them the right bags. Why not? Because purchasing bought the cheapest bags available. Why? Because nobody told them installers needed to carry specific equipment.

The real problem wasn't slow installers. It was that purchasing and operations never talked to each other.

Keep asking "why" until you feel like a five-year-old. That's when you know you're getting somewhere.

D5: Fix It for Real This Time

Now comes the hard part. Actually solving the problem instead of just treating symptoms.

This takes time. It takes money. It usually means changing how people work, and people hate changing how they work.

But here's the thing: you're going to spend time and money anyway. Either you spend it once on a real solution, or you spend it forever on band-aids.

For our installation problem, the real fix wasn't retraining installers. It was creating a communication system between purchasing and operations. We started having weekly meetings. Purchasing started sitting in on installation training. Operations started reviewing equipment purchases.

Boring? Yes. Effective? Also yes.

D6: Actually Do the Thing

Having a plan is like having a gym membership. It doesn't do anything unless you use it.

I've seen more good solutions die in this phase than any other. Someone creates a beautiful action plan, emails it to everyone, then... nothing happens.

Why? Because implementation is hard work. It requires follow-up, adjustment, and pushing through when people resist change.

Give this step to someone who cares about the outcome. Someone who'll check in weekly, notice when things aren't working, and have the authority to fix them.

Don't just dump it on whoever happens to be available.

D7: Build Your Immune System

Think of this like getting a vaccine. You're not just solving today's problem – you're making sure similar problems can't take root.

This means updating procedures, training new people differently, changing how systems talk to each other.

For our installation mess, we updated the purchasing guidelines to require operations sign-off on any equipment installers would use. We added "installation impact" to the checklist for new product development. We started tracking installation times and reviewing them monthly.

Not exciting. Extremely effective.

Document everything. Not in some filing cabinet nobody opens, but in the places where people actually make decisions.

D8: Buy Everyone a Beer

When people solve hard problems, say thank you.

Problem-solving is messy, frustrating work. It requires people to admit mistakes, work extra hours, and change comfortable routines. When they do that successfully, acknowledge it.

This isn't just about being nice (though that matters). It's about making sure people want to tackle the next big problem instead of hiding from it.

The Truth About Problems

The 8D method works because it assumes problems are puzzles, not punishments. It treats the people solving them like intelligent adults who want to do good work, not children who need to be managed.

Most importantly, it's designed around one simple insight: the time you spend solving a problem correctly is nothing compared to the time you'll spend if you solve it wrong.

Three years later, our installation times average ninety minutes. Customer satisfaction scores hit 94%. The guy who wrote in all caps? He's now our most enthusiastic referral source.

Problems will happen. That's guaranteed. How you handle them? That's up to you.